Living with a Skeptic

You need not worry as just because there is causality does not mean we can predict it with great accuracy (though some things we can) or that the future is known by some omniscient being. It just means things are connected and the concept of "random" as we use it likely can not exist in a pure form. I was merely playing with as it relates to linear events in any direction, space, time. If there was no causality existence would be a set of static images rather then a flowing thing ( metaphorically speaking, and off the top of my head) I expressing one possible reason why tarot may work, because life is not completely random.

The living room is practically covered in tarot books, paper trimmers for my decks, decks, knitting for pouches, etc. I'm frankly relieved he doesn't have a hobby that totally occupies our space!

Well, if he doesn't complain too much about that, I guess that IS a start I agree though that just to stop discussing stuff would be no long term solution and a sad thing to happen. It's just that I had a hard (and very long) time learning that it's hardly possible and actually not desirable to change someone else's mindset. My guess is that once both people in a relationship accept this, it will become much less painfull and less disappointing to start talking again about this sort of different "world outlook". More in a way of being curious and interested in the partner's different view and less being persuasive. And yes, this is easy to say, while I still have to fight my own self-opinioned and persuasive attitude.

And here you go, I am losing this fight again: Hello Crowned One (nah, no PM, I am vain enough to prefer my pointless blathering being spread in public ), after your second post I actually guess we don't disagree too much, my main problem is just that randomness often is mistaken as a measure of complete chaos. But in the weakest sense it is just a local lack of predictability, nothing said about determinism in general. And causality is still in place. A dice being rolled for example. There is a dice before you roll, there is a dice after you roll: strong causality. The dice will hardly ever keep rolling forever or end up sitting on an edge: good prediction power. The only thing we can't predict is what side will be up: "weak" randomness (weak because it might actually be determined, we just don't know). But we still can estimate the probabilities of each outcome: statistical knowledge and more causality.

But is there "strong" or "pure" randomness (real indeterminism)? All the overwhelming empirical evidence from experiments in quantum physics cries "YES!" What's weird about this is (among other things) that the environment we live in is in such a high order, that the underlying randomness in the behaviour of simply everything doesn't affect the causalities and interrelations between things too much. The structure of a dice is so utterly stable that the random movements of all the particles it is made of hardly have any chance to destroy this structure (in the short term at least).

The vital question I think is: how much of the real randomness is involved in the rather subtle topics we ask about? We don't ask about wether the sun will be still there tomorrow or not. But mostly ask about human decisions. That means the different possible outcomes of an unbelievably fine tuned and at the same time stunningly flexible mechanism like the human brain.

Ok, I am rambling now too. To cut it short: Although I think that randomness is profoundly underrated, all that stuff is so weird and complex that there is room for whatever point of view. And yes, it is the emotional stuff that matters. To see HOW weird the universe behaves actually helped me to be more tolerant with other attempts than my own one to make at least some sense of it.

YIf there was no causality existence would be a set of static images rather then a flowing thing ( metaphorically speaking, and off the top of my head)

That is well said. IMO it's not only metaphorically true, but absolutely. Only a sort of universe that happens to have a time dimension will be hostile for conscious beings ... *ramble ramble*, *put down wine glass*, *go to sleep*

Well... I have a friend who's uber logical, scientist, atheist, doesn't believe in anything without proof. It's kind of hilarious because I am sort of psychic, read Tarot, talk to trees and faeries, and I live in a haunted house (she does not believe in psychics, ghosts, and I'm not quite sure of her opinions on how well trees can communicate).

We've uh... obviously clashed a couple of times. Our most recent debate I ended up getting the last word (you have no idea how hard that is when it comes to her). She told me that the only way Tarot worked, and was using this an example why it shouldn't be taken seriously, was because people associated with the symbols of the cards and made it work for their situation, or the sitter's situation.

I told her that is indeed how Tarot works (plus using your intuition), that there is nothing magical about it, that if she was going to use one of the ways it works as an excuse to not believe it than obviously there are going to be problems... of course, I used three big paragraphs to say this, but that's the shortened version.

Her reply? "Oh, I just heard it was supernatural from other people, if that's how it works I don't have a problem with it."

I do believe that there is something more when it comes to Tarot, but hey... she's the most ultimate skeptic I'm friends with, I was trying to explain it in a way that she was going to understand and believe. And I think I succeeded!

(but no, seriously, I've only been able to shut her up twice... this is the second time)

My husband was and to some extent still is a bit of a skeptic. At first, he was so bad about it, that I would never discuss nor openly use any form of divination while he was around. I just didn't want to hear it. He knew I was reading cards, and doing psychic readings and all, but it just was something I did when he was not around.

Then as my popularity grew as a tarot card reader, one day we were in a store and some woman I had read for came running up to me to tell me how things I predicted in the reading came to be so. she was so excited about it. This continued to happen a few more times in the presence of the dear skeptic hubby and then one day he asked me to do a reading for him.

Of course I did so, and though I don't really recall it all now, he continues to be a skeptic but is willing to ask for a reading now and again. he's getting better about it as time goes on, but he will, I think, always be skeptical. he is after all an engineer - through and through! he needs cold hard facts that can prove this--and just hearing the praise of clients is not 'proof' for him.

But, yesterday, we were on vacation, and I did a reading for someone for a birthday gift--whom we met on the trip and she mentioned her birthday was coming up. anyway, the hubby was sitting there as I threw out the cards and began reading for her, and I was shocked when he pointed to a trio of cards and said, "doesn't this mean...." and indeed, I was about to say pretty much the same thing. So, apparently, he's listening and learning - even when I don't realize it, and who knows, maybe he is becoming less of a skeptic too.

She told me that the only way Tarot worked, and was using this an example why it shouldn't be taken seriously, was because people associated with the symbols of the cards and made it work for their situation, or the sitter's situation.

I told her that is indeed how Tarot works (plus using your intuition), that there is nothing magical about it, that if she was going to use one of the ways it works as an excuse to not believe it than obviously there are going to be problems... of course, I used three big paragraphs to say this, but that's the shortened version.

Her reply? "Oh, I just heard it was supernatural from other people, if that's how it works I don't have a problem with it."

I do believe that there is something more when it comes to Tarot, but hey... she's the most ultimate skeptic I'm friends with, I was trying to explain it in a way that she was going to understand and believe. And I think I succeeded!

(but no, seriously, I've only been able to shut her up twice... this is the second time)

Congrats on that victory—because my partner and I have definitely clashed about not only skepticism, etc., but also on the way we argue. In this case, with the usage of rationality.

I find it teeth gnashing when people use rationality as weapon, armor, and spoon to just about everything in the world, but especially as a weapon. Rationality is limited. The Enlightenment and its rationality brought us incredible advances, such as humanism, the scientific method, but also far more malignant modes of argumentation on why it's perfectly logical to colonize other peoples, further repress women, destroy the planet. In short, rationality can be used to rationalize anything, and it becomes its own dogma.

OK, rant over! Out of curiosity, is this what you believe, tho, that your mind is merely weaving a narrative on the cards you happened to pull? No higher consciousness at work? Would that make tarot more of a storytelling craft than an intuitive process? Of course it is both, but do you wonder if it's something more?

Celtic noodle, that's a great story. May I ask how long you've been together for that he's reached this point?

Well, if he doesn't complain too much about that, I guess that IS a start I agree though that just to stop discussing stuff would be no long term solution and a sad thing to happen. It's just that I had a hard (and very long) time learning that it's hardly possible and actually not desirable to change someone else's mindset. My guess is that once both people in a relationship accept this, it will become much less painfull and less disappointing to start talking again about this sort of different "world outlook". More in a way of being curious and interested in the partner's different view and less being persuasive. And yes, this is easy to say, while I still have to fight my own self-opinioned and persuasive attitude.

I too would love to reach this stage, and it does seem to require quite a lot of maturity and self-awareness. I have the uneasy feeling that my partner is kind and tolerant of it b/c I am his girlfriend, but if I were *not* his girlfriend, he would be dismissive. Although I understand this is the reality of compromises in any relationship, it strikes me as sad and even insincere.

I know I could not date someone whose religion/politics embodied an ideology radically different to mine, for instance. :-/ But perhaps that reflects my own limitations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trzes

Although I think that randomness is profoundly underrated, all that stuff is so weird and complex that there is room for whatever point of view. And yes, it is the emotional stuff that matters. To see HOW weird the universe behaves actually helped me to be more tolerant with other attempts than my own one to make at least some sense of it.

I love this. Hrmm, we must be reading different news articles—everything I've been hearing has been lately saying that quantum physics is revealing that there does seem to be more and more order, though of course, far more unknowns than what we do know. Well, I'm not keeping up, I suppose!

OK, rant over! Out of curiosity, is this what you believe, tho, that your mind is merely weaving a narrative on the cards you happened to pull? No higher consciousness at work? Would that make tarot more of a storytelling craft than an intuitive process? Of course it is both, but do you wonder if it's something more?

Partly, I definitely do believe in the symbolism thing to an extent, especially when you're reading for yourself. When you're reading for others I believe it takes more intuition than simply reading for yourself.

To answer your question though, I do believe that some kind of spiritual being does play a role in Tarot, especially when you're ASKING that being, example: "What does *insert Higher Power* want me to know..." "What does my spirit guardian want me to know..." "What does *dead person/animal* want me to know..." I vividly remember one time I was doing a REALLY important reading about someone from my life that was rather long, I specifically asked The Fates (I'm pretty agnostic, I know there is a higher power, no idea what, so I just call it that) what I needed to know about this person and the situation we were in and I had a voice that was not my own guiding me through the entire reading.

But again, my goal was trying to prove to her that Tarot actually does work (and really, there is so much evidence of this it's painful). My idea of how it actually works is outside of her world-view, but I know that intuition, archetypes, observation and the power of the mind is not only in her's but also actually does play a HUGE role in how Tarot works.

I am in a very similar situation. My live-in and I have different spiritual/religious beliefs. We also have different interests.

He has never believed in my cards and thinks I'm nutty when it comes to them but I don't much mind. It surprised me a lot when he came to me and asked if I'd help him create a deck. It's been a slow process and he still has no more belief in tarot than he did before but he's an artist and I think he needed a project to do. He does seem to be more interested about the cards themselves and the images but not in the actual reading of them. I think he sees them as works of art. And I'm fine with that. He even asked me if I wanted a deck for my birthday, so that's something.

I suppose it's the way I feel about going to art openings and crap like that. With all those pretentious people. But I go, and I smile. And I pretend to care about the technique or whatever the big deal is. I don't get it at all but that is what he loves and who he is. I think his work is the best I've ever seen. One of his sculptures actually brought me to tears and he's been working on one just for me.

I look at it as any other thing in our relationship. We have differences, plenty of them. But we're never disrespectful about them and I know he tries to be supportive of my taroting. I just did a party this weekend and he seemed genuinely pleased with how much money I brought home and he asked me how it went. As in, if I was ok or overly drained. I even came home at midnight to find he had made dinner. I felt bad, as I was 3 hours late getting home.

As long as we continue to be supportive of each other I think it's nice that there are things that are only mine and he has things that are only his. We'd be boring if we agreed on everything and wanted to do everything together. Besides, I don't like the thought of him using my decks without asking.

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